


For I have lived that night

by mireh_lilav



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Gen, Gyda survives the plague, Slice of Life, little to no dialogue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2021-03-29
Packaged: 2021-04-19 07:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21878359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mireh_lilav/pseuds/mireh_lilav
Summary: What would have Gyda become if she had survived the plague?
Relationships: Athelstan & Floki, Athelstan & Gyda (Vikings), Bjorn & Gyda (Vikings), Floki & Gyda, Gyda & Lagertha, Gyda & Ragnar Lothbrok
Comments: 12
Kudos: 54





	1. Sickness

Gyda’s breath doesn’t still that night.

She doesn’t go up in the smoke amongst so many other pyres, so many other lost heartbeats and death-matted eyes.  
She doesn’t disappear into the ash-stricken night, even though she rests breathless and cold for many hours stretching into days afterwards.

Her mother presides over the sacrifice that will ensure the safe passage for the perished into the kingdom of death. Later that night she, amongst all those who survived the plague, will stand on the beach and gaze into the flicker of the burning corpses. There is only silence interrupted by the creaking of burning wood that rules over the usually bustling and lively Kattegat. The life will reclaim its rule over the city soon enough but for now the death stands astride over the streets, the hall of gatherings and the fjord beach itself.

Gyda might have survived that treacherous night but her body still struggles in the clutches of the unseen adversary. Larger than any life. Stronger than any warrior. More cunning than any answer given by the Seer. She floats submerged in pain and fear. Unconscious with fever and pale with the blood loss. Her tormented mind is completely derailed. The only sparks of hope she gets in her own Hel are the the far away whispers of the familiar voices.

After many days, each of them worse than the previous one, she finally starts to emerge, to claw her way back to the world she loved so much before her malady. She is finally able to recognise mother’s and Athelstan’s voices. She tries to follow them. She tries to make them her guides in the ever present darkness of not-living but not-quite-death. She tries to pray to the gods too. To beg them to rescue her. To pull her out of this darkness and hopelessness. But this turns out to be too difficult as her muddled up mind doesn’t seem to be able to put together the words of her usual prayers. With the strain that seems to be too much for any human to bear, she finally manages to resurface.

But it isn’t what she has hoped for. The world she so much longed for is gone. Replaced, vanished and fable-like.

She is mute with the horror of dreamless sleep. She is deaf with the silence of death. And she is blind with the rage she doesn’t understand as it doesn’t even belong to her. She feels ready to burst at the seams with it. To boil over with it. To explode and destroy with it. She doesn’t dare to move too much.

She watches on as the relief of her miraculous awakening disappears from the tired eyes and too open faces of Lagertha and Athelstan. It is replaced with sorrow and new worries. She wants to wipe these emotions off of their faces, she wants to cause only smiles, even if teary and bleary-eyed, but not sadness. Never sadness. Her name should bear happiness to it, not despair.

She tries to brave the fate head on but the world she came about to is something much different from the one she has said her goodbyes to. The world around her unfolds like a night flower, like a storm of many lightnings, like an eerie song that doesn’t strike a cord in her heart, even though she used to sing it with her every breath. She so desperately tries to reconnect. To find her anchor. And yet, it all slips away. All seems to be just a product of her ailing mind, to be a hallucination of madness-striken soul.

Gyda struggles with the simplest of things. She chokes on every spoonful of her favourite fish soup that Athelstan brings her everyday. She stutters with every word she forces out of her throat. And there aren’t many she manages to spit out. They all feel so foreign on her tongue though. She feels dead even if the heartbeat drums on and on in her ringing ears.

All of this doesn’t go unnoticed. People around her begin to scatter, to simmer out, to disappear. Not without a good reason of course. She pushes them away. Not on purpose of course. She would never do such a thing intentionally, yet she still somehow pushes them away. The people who take care of her needs, start to frequent her room less and less as the weeks pass. They disappear one by one, faces drawn in sullen expressions, closed off and forlorn. The final, oh so bitter straw, is the betrayed expression on her mother’s face after one of Gyda’s sudden, uncalled for outbursts. Gyda wishes she could forget that look but she doubts she ever will. After Lagertha’s resigned retreat, one she wants to stop with shouts of apologies and remorse that never make it out of her mouth, she cries silently into her sleeve for hours on end. She is broken. Broken and lost in a world she doesn’t understand and in the world in which she keeps hurting those who treasure her like a living silver. The only one left at her bedside, scarred and scared in his own right, is Athelstan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gyda's character has a very special place in my heart and thus I decided to explore the idea of her surviving the plague.
> 
> Also fun fact: I really like to deconstruct various liminal states as you have probably noticed already.


	2. Omens

Nights pass as the days do. They blend into one another and string a chain of bleak waking hours and awfully tiring sleep, pierced only by the rare visits of her defeated mother and short but frequent vigils of the pensive priest. She is still too weak to go out on her own, yet more importantly she doesn’t see a single reason why she should emerge from the shadows of the voluntary confinement in her own room.

The rage that bubbled up in her, that boiled her blood and pushed callous and hurtful words out of her mouth is still there - dormant and sour like an aftertaste of the rancid milk, nonetheless Gyda tentatively tries to push it down, to forget how it feels to experience something so wild and inhuman and to pretend like this feeling never clawed its way into her heart. It is difficult but she manages to keep her thoughts off of it. She stays consequently silent. She turns her gaze away from her cherished ones. She shivers whenever Lagertha, oh so delicately, squeezes her hands in a gesture that conveys her love and her care and all of her worries. Gyda has to swallow back the tears that prickle in the corners of her eyes. She doesn’t dare to open her mouth.

She succumbs to the numbness and tiredness that have persisted in the members of her body ever since she woke up from the deadly stupor. She lays on the furs and stares at the logged ceiling of her room. She counts the rings and the knots. She follows the patterns of the spiderwebs. She sometimes rolls on her side and stares into the corners to observe changings of the shadows. Her days are measured by their growth and cut short by their voracious hunger in feats of which they swallow the whole room. Gyda learns how to measure her time with the shadows and her breaths. She tries to tame herself. She tries to force herself into a shape and form she knows but nothing seems familiar anymore.

Nonetheless she settles oh so slowly into this hollow rhythm of life. It doesn’t ring any notes familiar to her ears. It doesn’t weave itself like her old life used to before its thread nearly snapped. It is a miserable replacement. One that leaves much more deep-reaching aches than acceptance of her condition. She has however no other option as to breathe in and accept what gods have left her in their mercy. She should be thankful and say her prayers with every breath but the right words are still very much missing.

On one of these drab days while she is amidst her usual observations and scrupulous calculations, she feels a poignant presence. Something that squeezes her lungs clean out of air and her limbs free of any strength. She has never felt someone so closely, so intimately and so fully ever before. Her eyes might be still clouded with death and her spirit might be mired with the sickness, yet at that very moment her intuition sharpens beyond anything remotely comfortable. She feels her body lock up. She feels her muscles tense until they are only a painful string of twitches and shivers.

To her silent, choking horror she isn’t alone in the thickening shadows. She doesn’t have to look to see. There is something out there in the dark corner in between her small weaving looms and baskets of yarn and wool. She just knows. There is someone. Crouched. Inhumanly still. Silent and breathless.

Thyri. It’s Thyri. Thyri is dead. She saw her die. And yet Thyri is there in the shadows. Thyri is there and she is raging. Gyda can smell the rage, she can taste the anger and she can almost feel the pure amok that permeates from the figure that used to always have a kind word for her, that was a friendly companion and that used to be alive and human. Something however tells her that this thing isn’t Thyri anymore. It’s a shadow, a nightmare and a leftover suffering.

Something she should have become. Her lungs fill with air to the brink of pain. Something she should be right now. Her heart thuds in defiance. But Gyda is alive and something bad wakes up in her. Something that belongs to her new self, that had never been there before. The aversion to death and all her children. Her own rage that she so desperately tried to pull down, to bury and to extinguish, breaks free.

\- Go away. - The words bleed out of her mouth. And right behind them, on the tip of the tongue, on the line of the gums and in her throat there is a scream rising.

Athelstan and Lagertha will find her screaming, shaking and crying shortly after but Thyri will have been long gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is the "lifting the veil between the worlds" one of my favourite motives? Sure is.  
Is it probably something that originated in the Victorian era and marked the growing dissonance between the "mundane" and "extraordinary" cognitive states? Yep.


	3. Abyss

She is inconsolable that night. She wails. She screams. She shouts. No amount of kind and most loving words soothe her anguish. How can she be consoled if she glimpsed at her own destiny that she had somehow managed to escape? She shakes like a leaf, rocking back and forth in the safe embrace of her mother’s arms. How can she feel protected if the danger seems to be ever-present, yet even more ephemeral than a spectre? The foreign psalms hummed in Athelstan’s gentle voice don’t bring her joy like they used to. How can they if she is being faced with something that escapes her senses and her understanding? All she can think of is the phantom that visited her. She refuses to call it by the name of Siggy’s daughter.

She wants to believe that Thyri has reached Valhalla and that she is rejoicing with her father and the gods, yet something nagging fills her trembling heart with doubt. She feels watched, followed and chased. She isn’t alone anymore. Suddenly her broken world mends itself back together like a curse. There are thousand and one eyes in the darkness of her mind and the room alike. She hears whispers that follow her into her slumber and echo in her dreams. There are shadows that seem to move, to writhe and to spasm on their own accord, that stick to her skin and taint her. She isn’t alone anymore.

Thyri’s shadow eventually comes back. Just as silent, still and passive. Gyda screams her lungs out until her voice doesn’t come out and yet it doesn’t relent anymore. It crouches vigilant and strung up as if ready to pounce and smother her. Yet worse of all, it hasn’t come alone this time. The corners of her vision are crowded with silent figures, ones that accuse her of treachery and cowardice. She can almost feel their faul touch upon her skin. After all they crave her blood, marrow and brains. After all, one can escape death and make the fool out of it only so many times. They are patient. They will wait for Gyda, bearing a silent witness to her slow descent into madness as she can’t tell the Dead from the Living anymore.

She becomes fearful of those who try to shine through that thick shroud of delirium. She cannot tell them from the shadows surrounding her in ever so slightly shrinking circle of rot. She doesn’t trust her eyes anymore. They stopped being reliable witnesses to her cause. They show her things that don’t exist and are blind to those which she knows are there. She tries to force them to focus, to see and watch but her vision is at best blurry and grey. The worst is yet to come however.

  
One fateful day the calamity reaches those whom she so desperately tries to love with her old heart. She can almost swear that Athelstan’s gentle smile morphs into the bony sneer of draugr right in front of her eyes just as Lagertha’s long lovely hair turns into a nest of cobwebs crawling with spiders and insects. Something inside her chest, something so fragile which has barely endured the hardship of the last few weeks or maybe months, finally breaks. And as if summoned all the shadows crawl out of their hiding at once. Thyri’s phantom unfolds itself with the crack of broken, rotting bones. They all advance onto Gyda, whose strength and will have finally left her. Crowding her, pushing her to the ground, pulling and shoving. They swarm her until all the light is gone and Gyda slips into a silent darkness. There isn’t much hope for Gyda’s second miraculous awakening this time however.

Time strung into days, weeks and months passes. Time of darkness. Time of complete loss of senses. Many years into the future Gyda will have heard the stories of this cruel time, of the desperation and heartbreak and of many failed attempts to coax her out of the paralysis. Right at that very moment however there isn’t much of Gyda left. She is just a husk, a shell and a vessel. Devoid of any thought or any traces of her spirit. The living Dead and the dead Living.

When all hope is finally extinguished and the fate seems to be finally sealed, the gods smile onto Gyda.

She awakes at the fjord beach. Lying on a cot, tucked in the opulent furs and guarded by Athelstan. She awakes to the sound of his voice telling her the stories of a far-away lands and far-away miracles, even though one of them is happening right next to him. Gyda feels fractured, so fragile and incomplete. Yet, looking at the calm ebb of the weaves and hearing their subtle murmur, she knows, she survived. The first sob wrenches itself out of her breast. She’s finally at peace. Her tears finally purify her. The time of darkness is over. After a small eternity, the howling cries are soothed away into tired hiccups.

  
\- I don’t want to see you cry anymore. Your mother doesn’t either. We don’t want to see you cry ever again. - Athelstan declares, wiping her tear-stricken cheeks dry, while his own tears stream freely down his face.

Later that day, she will hobble up to her mother and embrace her with little strength she has.


	4. Ebbs

She has finally returned home. Or at least it feels like it. The deadly stupor has been lifted off of her body. The curse has been finally broken. And all she wishes for herself is for the past fears and painful tribulations to be nothing more than a long-gone nightmarishly disfigured dream. A dream not to forget but to subdue and to domesticate. She nearly wishes it into fruition.

She has found her voice anew and she hasn’t found it to scream in anguish. Not yet at least. Oh no. She hums and signs under her breath. She ignores the buzz and the incessant ringing in her ears that seem to follow her everywhere she goes - she blames it on her weakened condition and too many rash movements too soon. And yet she dares to twirl and sway a little bit when no one is looking. She is still clumsy but it will pass. She just can’t stand being immobile. She dreads lying down to sleep.

She doesn’t win her childhood innocence back - she cannot forget what she saw in the shadows and what stared right back into her soul. She cannot force her heart to be oblivious to the rage it once bore. It doesn’t mean however that she won’t try. She forces herself to the best of her abilities to be her old cheerful self. It takes a lot of effort but it pays off. One step taken, one song hummed and one smile beamed at time. Gyda has finally returned home to those she loves most dearly, even if she can’t ignore what has happened to her.

It is a constant battle. Or at least that’s what it really feels like. She isn’t sure how much of it is visible to those around her. She has to be cautious all the time - one step amiss and she might fall back into the abyss she crawled out of with so much pain and despair in tow.

That’s why she likes to spend her days looking at the water. The water is forgiving. The water doesn’t harbour the impure. The water is ever living and in constant flux of waves. The water allows her to forget. Even if just for the briefest of all moments. It purifies her soul and soothes the jagged edges and unhealed wounds that are still there. The fjord beach grants her reprise and becomes her quiet heaven that she had barely visited back before the illness. Now she can’t get through her day without even a single visit. She sits down in the wet sand and lets the water murmur and soothe her worries. She watches never-ending ebb of waves and traces all the wrinkles across the water surface searching for the hidden patterns and hidden truths alike. She lets the wind caress her cheeks and twirl her hair. She feels serene. Nearly weightless in these moments. She likes to think she could probably fly away if she tried to. She likes to think of herself as free at last - even if she is keenly aware of something weighing her so very much down. She still tries to make herself believe she is like a feather in the wind, even if only for a few short moments as she cannot ignore the lead weight pushing at her ribs for ever - an invisible anchor with a chain binds her down to the earth. Thus she wants to feel weightless and ready to float through air - only then she could deem herself happy and content where she sits.

She lets her thoughts string themselves into a silent prayer to no one in particular and everyone at the same time. She thinks about her mother, her father and Bjorn. She misses father and Bjorn so dearly. They are still away. Still afoot somewhere in the foreign land. Her heart aches for their return. She wants to believe it will mend itself some more when her family is finally reunited. Whole at last. She tries to make her thoughts sound like prayers but she frets that her miserable attempts might be the farthest thing from it. Nonetheless she tries to pray their safe return out.

She has taken to sitting silently and nearly breathless at the beach. She stares into the distance. She waits. She waits and counts all the waves that come to greet her, in hope that the next one will finally be the one bringing her father and her brother back to Kattegat.

On yet another day of her never-ending task - and she has already tried counting all the stars she could see from the courtyard of the longhouse - she feels a strange restlessness befall her body. She is strung up with anticipation. Vibrating with excited worry. Nearly shaking with the sheer intensity of it. And then she sees him.

Her father standing by the rocks. Weary with a long journey. Still clutching his travel satchel. Weighed down with a burden Gyda can see but cannot name. Something that disappears in a blink of an eye as soon as their gazes meet, replaced with an immense relief.

\- Gyda. - her father embrace is strong, yet trembling. His voice is choked up with the unimaginably painful strain yet steeled with his usual resolve. - Gyda, my child.

Gyda doesn’t answer. She only whimpers with a sudden onslaught of sadness and love, both so deep that she chokes on air, and yet she doesn’t relent as she clings to her father for her dear life.

\- Gyda. - her father doesn’t need to say anything else. There is everything in this single word: laid out bare and white like the whale bones on the beach.

And Gyda sees it not as it is but as it is meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: I got inspired to write the whole story by the scene with Ragnar's goodbye monologue.


	5. Bitterness

Her family is finally together. Her mother, her father, her brother and her, Gyda. Athelstan is there too with the glint of relief and subtle rapture in his eye. There are no more duels with jarls, no more mediations in feuds of faraway rulers in even more faraway lands, no more sacrifices of those close to ones’ heart. Everything should be good, should be peaceful and should be as it was. But it isn’t. Together at last but somehow split and alone still. The silence that falls between them is somewhat hostile and heavier than usual. Gyda fears it is because of her.

Once her father and her come back home from the beach, Lagertha takes Ragnar to the side for a longer conversation in hushed-down voices and guilt-laden stares that sometimes graze her person and tell Gyda all that she has to know without even catching a single stray word of their exchange. She can sense the distress of her father and the sadness of her mother. But at the center of it all there is fear. Fear of the powerful malady coming back and this time claiming Gyda for good. Fear that she herself still harbours in the depths of her thoughts and in the darkest corners of her heart.

Once they come back to her she braves a smile that she hopes reaches her eyes. Her father’s hug that follows is a little bit too tight, feels a little bit too desperate and reminds her of a simple truth. They cannot go back to what was before. Not a single path leads back into the past, all of them head into the nebulous land of the future and Gyda has to learn how to live with it.

To her utter relief and utmost joy, one thing that doesn’t change as much is Bjorn. Dear Bjorn. Her beloved brother. With as much energy as always. Resolute and brave. Sometimes too temperamental like a young spring storm but with a fond smile and sparkling eyes nevertheless. She knows mother and father told him. She knows because she might have actually eavesdropped on nearly the whole conversation before Athelstan pulled her off the door and took her to the kitchens. She appreciates his worry but she really wanted to hear that one. She doesn’t have to worry though - she is so glad to find out he doesn’t treat her any different. His is still her older brother and behaves like so. They still run around Kategatt and play on the streets with other children. They still bicker about the smallest things, steal morsels of food from each other’s plates and shove at each other playfully.

What Gyda treasures the most however are the forest outings. They venture into the woods around Kategatt when the adults aren’t looking closely enough, which proves to be much more frequent than she has anticipated. Ragnar and Lagertha seem distracted. She can't really say that they are avoiding each other but it surely looks like that: one doesn’t have to have the keenest sense of observation to see it. All day long they do everything to evade themselves at their usual paths. Once the evening comes however, all the sidesteps, dodges and bypasses become impossible to pull off as they cannot evade each other at their family’s table and to her chagrin Gyda has to observe it all. And there is a lot to observe. There is. There, where once ruled laughter and playful quips, now reigns the uncomfortable silence. And Gyda still cannot find a single reason for such state of events. It doesn’t seem to be her, does it? She just cannot put it all tighter. That is until Bjorn finally tells her.

They are in the forest yet again, seated amongst the high ferns and nibbling on the dried fish they took out of the kitchen on their way out. They wandered a little bit off the beaten path into a gently sloped ravine as it looked invitingly with all of its lush vegetation and refreshing shade. They aren’t talking about anything specific at all. They are both absent-minded and bone-tired from a chase they gave each other just a few moments ago. That is until Bjorn clears his throat and utters a few words she had never expected to hear in her life without even looking her in the face.

\- Father cheated on mother. - There it is. A blessing of reveal and the curse of knowledge. The reason why it all feels different. Something which should put thorns in her heart and tears in her eyes alike. It doesn’t however.  
She sighs - suddenly too weary to hold her eyes open as she slips onto her moss beneath her. Bjorn yawns both tired and distressed with the weight of the words he has just spoken as he takes place next to her. Gyda cracks her eyes open and tilts her head to see her brother’s face. To ground herself in that sea of rustling green and bitter discovery. From her brother’s face greet her the eyes of her father but also the scowl of her mother.  
\- I… I should have told her. - Bjorn’s words catch somewhere in his throat before spilling out in a pained whisper. Gyda doesn’t know what to feel about seeing her brother this vulnerable. - I should have. Shouldn’t I? - he stares into her eyes searching for condemnation and absolution alike.  
\- I don’t know Bjorn. I don’t know. - Gyda sighs and closes her eyes again. She is so sleepy. Too sleepy and too indifferent.


	6. Serenity

After that everything seems like a damned dream. They emerge from the whispering forest into the evening sun - their bones and eyelids both heavy with a burden of sleep, their steps forgetful and a little bit doubting. Everything feels unreal and fleeting. The world shifts ever so slightly into the growing twilight shadows - the darkness gathers beneath the canopies of forest trees, it seeps out of their steps and drips from their own fingers into ever longer shadows that will devour that beautiful day. They stumble upon a beaten road and continue on towards the village - silent and bewildered by it all. The truth burdens them like a millstone tied to one’s neck and pulling into the deadly river depths and yet neither of them speaks. The are both powerless in the face of their mother’s heartbreak that she still doesn’t know about, which they are already sharing with her however.

At some point Gyda must have closed her eyes, because once she opens them again with such a difficulty, there aren’t alone on the road anymore. Floki joins their little march. Silent and absent-minded himself, which isn’t anything unusual for their father’s friend. Weary and restless - just like most summer evenings during which it seems he longs after something he lost long time ago. His lanky figure throws a long, disturbingly contorted shadow onto the pasture meadows - one that warns and wards off anything and everyone that could cross his paths unwished for. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t so much as glance at them. Gyda’s hand finds Floki’s on its own, independently from her own reflexes and her own will. A barely there squeeze makes a small smile crawl onto her lips.

Floki is strange. Floki doesn’t abide by the rules. He chooses his own paths and his own laws. Floki talks to the trees and listens to the wind. Floki creeps through the darkness and shadows but basks in the sun nonetheless. He is taciturn in his never-ending stream of spoken-out-loudly thoughts. He is a storm in a waiting. Sometimes Gyda wonders if he is a human after all. He might be a godling that decided to befriend her father one day. He might be a tree spirit that took a human form. He might be so many things and Gyda has only noticed recently. She is reluctant to admit it but her illness opened her eyes to certain things. Floki being amongst them.

Floki comes and goes but is unfailingly there when Gyda and her family need help. He speaks in riddles, oftentimes treating the adults with silence and yet he always has most beautiful stories for both of them. He doesn’t know how to swim and seems to be fearful of water as if he could actually see his end in tidal waves slowly hitting the quay and hear his final breath in slightly salty breeze coming off of the shore and still he ventures onto the sea with their father. Floki is a walking contradiction, one that appears simply mad at the first glance and is simply so for the majority of Kattegat’s population but not in Gyda’s eyes. Gyda’s eyes can see now: under said maddened simplicity there is a seething mystery of too-sharp-tongue and too-somber-thoughts.

Aside from all the quirks and peculiarities of his person, Floki is like a precious stone in the rough or maybe - Gyda reflects gently and with newly found astonishment - one that is polished just to the taste and pleasure of gods and goddesses. Under words that sound like the ramblings of a lunatic, under the mocking laughter that condemns for the stupidity and ignorance of fellow mortal, there is a kind and brave heart - one that is full of forgiveness and hope.

His ardent faith and his burning piety didn’t stop him from slowly befriending someone he once wanted to drawn in the sea on their way back from the first raid in England. The friendship he has with Athelstan is a weak one and Floki would never call it a friendship in the first place or actually admit to not-really-hating-Athelstan aloud. But his actions speak louder than his words. It is a fragile and an easily breakable friendship nonetheless. It trembles in quarrelsome bouts of shouting and snickering about fate or sacrifices of human flesh and blood - in these moments Gyda fears that it would all come to a gruesome end in a bitter tragedy. Surprisingly yet, they still come back to their small silent truce as they work side by side or spend time with her and Bjorn. As the seasons come and go, they actually find more things that they share and have in common than those which bring a divide between them two. They both are loyal to Ragnar and have been standing by her father’s side through the good, the bad and the worst. They stayed at Ragnar’s bedside as he was battling the injuries he suffered through the village raid and plunge into the mercilessly cold sea. It’s nothing that Floki would ever admit to of course but Gyda can clearly recall the glimpses of admiration and thankfulness when he found out that Athelstan fished Rangar out of the fjord’s treacherous waters.

Floki’s a friend. She glances up to look at him again and sees his eyes shine with a mischievous glint. She squeezes his hand and doesn’t have to say a word. Floki’s her family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Floki's character is such an incredibly well-written one. He's one of my favourites for sure - and as far as my favourites go I like to change some things about them (and keep them alive). Don't get me wrong - I love me some good old conflict between the old gods and the new faith fuelled by personal jealousy but I also like unlikely friendships that don't end in a premeditated murder of passion with an ax.


	7. Sorrow

Bjorn must have told mother as she grows silent and weary. Lagertha is cold wrath culminated in waiting. Her eyes swim tearfully with sorrow and pain. She is silent fury that flowers into hopeless bitterness. Yet, there is a special kind of stubbornness hidden beneath the qualms of such heartbreak - one that will set their family’s world ablaze once the grief will overflow a battered heart. Gyda watches helplessly on as the sadness and anger brew together in her mother’s gestures. Lagertha is wound up like rope about to snap. Gyda should be the one trying to alleviate her mother’s pain and misery but for some reason she cannot force herself to do it. And so she watches Siggy as the other woman tries her best with her stories and songs. Gyda is thankful for Siggy. Thankful for her generous heart. And while watching, she realises something with rising horror. It’s the deadly stupor rearing its ugly head back up as it tries to claim her once again. And yet, all she prays for is the peace upon her mother’s heart but she knows there is no peace without a confrontation and the truth finally coming out. She can already tell by the terseness of her mother’s movements that the confrontation is nigh.

The day that it all comes crushing down couldn’t be more beautiful and yet it couldn’t have been burdened with more sorrows as it is. The salty breeze brings the subtle song of waves right upon the Kattegat’s quay. It seems that everybody has gathered at the shore to greet the returning ships. The whispers of anxious women and murmur of impatient men mix up with a lively clamour of seagulls that circle over their heads. Gyda stands next to her mother and brother. Both anxious and impatient - tired of waiting, yet dreading the news the ships bring with them. She glances around the crowd and sees familiar faces contorted in the widest array of emotions: Siggy is trying to steel herself and remain strong in her silent suffering, Helga seems fidgety with the unnamed dread and Athelstan bears sadness in his pale eyes. The wait is simply unbearable. Gyda closes her eyes and everyone around her fades to a loud breath and barely-there presence. She anchors herself in that turmoil and blinks the darkness away as the first ship reaches the quay and the crowd around her erupts in shouts and curses. 

Her father returned victorious from the sorrowful battle - weary with pain and exhausted with his own choice. The midday sun of a beautiful summer day is both dazzling in its celestial brilliance and cruel in its harshness - it doesn’t allow any deceit and so it lays Ragnar’s trespasses and Lagertha’s suffering bare. It doesn’t allow any secrecy. It unveils truth at all costs in the most cruel ways. The reckoning that Gyda has dreaded so much happens in a swift moment. Amongst the angry crowd that is enraged with the deaths of their loved ones and the betrayal that cuts to the bones, her mother’s and father’s eyes meet. Amidst the frustrated shouts of pain and despair, the gazes of her parents lock. In the middle of their own family’s tragedy the fortunes of Kattegat stand reaffirmed. Gyda’s heart beats painfully heavy in her chest as she takes in the carnage around her.

Her dear, brave and strong uncle standing as a traitor amongst those who would most likely tear him to shreds if not for their customs and laws. Motionless and grief-stricken Siggy that shakes with guilt and fear. Her brother with a stubborn glint in his eyes, his fists clenched and his whole being trembling with trepidation. Hysteric Helga howling over Floki’s unconscious body. Her parents frozen in a deadly embrace of revelation and bitter truth. Gyda stands in that turmoil and feels her heart sink in the impending feeling of doom.

The meal is tense, full of side-glances and snappish movements. There is no one to lighten the mood as Floki lies in fever from the wounds he suffered during the battle. Athelstan sits further back than usual and lets the shadows embrace him. Yet, Gyda can still see his hands lightly shaking. Siggy is so rigid and so still - she tries to remain strong and composed and yet at the same time she doesn’t meet anyone’s gaze as if she was trying to disappear into thin air - Rollo’s betrayal weighs on her as she is somewhat feeling responsible for all the pain and death it caused. She visibly shivers when her father mentioned Arne.

It all then erupts with Lagertha’s simple question. One that causes feelings of rage, betrayal and heartbreak. One that sends her father storming outside and her mother chasing after him with bitter words on her lips and barely repressed tears in her eyes. After that outburst the hall falls silent.No one dares to speak as the only sounds that resonate along the walls are clanks of spoons. Siggy ends her meal in haste and excuses herself - most probably to go and seek Rollo. Bjorn mumbles something into his half eaten bowl of soup and leaves as well. Athelstan sighs heavily and squeezes Gyda’s arm in a reassuring gesture that somewhat seems doubting in itself and goes after Bjorn - most likely to stop the boy from doing something stupid. Gyda stays behind.

She toys with the leftover soup for what feels like eternity and then goes to the hearth. She doesn’t want to emerge and see the misery just yet. She needs some time to process all that happened today: her uncle’s capture and imminent judgement. Floki’s frail state and the possibility he might not survive the fortnight. Her parents problems that somewhat are also hers as her parents are her world and her haven. She lowers herself onto the floor next to the hearth and stares into the dancing flames as they call out for her. She seeks solace in their crackling and warmth in their glow. She lets them consume her and as she falls sideways onto the cold floor unfeeling and suddenly blind, her first vision begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Siggy is such a complex and interesting character. I really like her - most of all, for her compassion.


	8. Visions

Gyda’s everywhere. She tastes the salt in the sea breeze and the sharp mountain air high above glimmering lights of Kattegat. She still feels the pleasant warmth of the main hall’s hearth of her cheeks but at the same time she can almost sense the meadow dew at the tips of her fingers. She lies beneath the houses together with the foundation sacrifices and floats above the main square in the clouds of fragrant smoke. She faces the primeval darkness and the undying sun. Gyda’s nowhere.

Gyda’s eyes turn blind but she sees more than she has ever wanted to. Her ears are closed and there is a ringing that only intensifies with every passing moment but she can hear every single word being spoken or shouted that night as clearly as if she was standing a whisper away. Moreover, she feels the onslaught of all the feelings and all the passions that tear up her family and friends as they sink into her bones and strike a false tone in her heart. For a moment she is lost again. Thousand thoughts and even more fears fighting in her body to prevail and resurface as victorious. She is no one and yet everyone - she feels Bjorn’s helplessness, she breathes Floki’s heavy breaths and sees through Helga’s tears. The familiar darkness and despair don’t return but for a second Gyda wishes they had as she struggles to hold onto her fleeting sense of self. For a painful second she fears the death might have come back to claim her but laboured breath for laboured breath she regains the relative sense of composure. She stops her futile fight and lets her soul float as she becomes the witness to all and nothing.

The first person Gyda sees is Siggy. Poor and heartbroken Siggy. She hurries through the streets to the main square and quickens her steps even more so when she sees Gyda’s uncle there. Torstein who has been tasked with a guarding duty, rises from his seat hastily upon Siggy’s sight. All the worries and suspicions disappear off of his face as he takes a closer look at the distraught woman in front of him. He curtly nods at her and leaves her alone with Rollo. Siggy kneels next to Gyda’s uncle and embraces him lovingly while simultaneously trying to shield him from the evening’s cold as she wraps her own shawl around his tense shoulders. Siggy’s face is stricken with grief so heartbreaking and deep that it aches to look at. She is hunched next to her shackled uncle just as if she was Rollo’s co-conspirator in his traitorous act and as if she was also the one awaiting the punishment. Siggy’s eyes might be full of grief mixed with fear for their future but her words are bleeding with unconditional love - one that is ready for the greatest sacrifices, one that paths ways to forgiveness for the biggest sins. Gyda’s heart burns and breaks for Siggy and for her uncle alike. Rolo is visibly shaken and has now become almost shrunken with the weight of his faults and unfortunate decisions. His eyes are dead with realisation of what he has done and whom he might have lost for ever.

Gyda sees Bjorn as he trashes around himself at the Kattegat’s beach - his rage and bitter sorrow have become untamed and uncontrolled in the evening’s drab twilight. He throws sticks and stones around, he stomps on the very few shells that were washed up on the shore and he grunts and half-screams in anger and frustration. He is a growing boy - one that soon will have to take on his responsibilities head on. But not yet. Not now. He still has the comfort of pretending to be untouched by these worries and to be free with his anger as he pleases. As he grows into a man he will have to control them and mask them with a stoic facade but for now he is forgiven to do as his broken heart commands him to.

Gyda sees Helga next. The woman is hunched over Floki’s unconscious body as she bawls her eyes out in a silent torrent of sadness and fear. Her father’s friend is in a very bad condition. His breaths might be even and deep but they are audibly strained. Floki’s face is scrunched with an unnamed worry of unconscious state as if he is able to sense Helga’s distress so close to him. In between the bouts of heavy crying, Helga manages to utter a few prayers that sound like the most timid begging of a dying man. Floki might be the one struggling to breathe, but he is not the only one in slow agony this night. Gyda lets her heart burn with hope as she fears even a single thought of mourning. As she lets her heavy thoughts wonder on the darker paths of her mind, someone knocks on the door and soon Athelstan enters with a helping of supper. Helga must have not eaten anything all day and Athelstan is trying to see to her at least getting some late night meal. As Helga eats, he keeps a vigil at at Floki’s bedside. Both are silent - they don’t even look at each other and yet, the silenceisn’t heavy or laden with reproaches. They are both worried for the her father’s friend and so they both start praying - maybe to different gods but still with the same intent at heart.

Finally, she sees someone else. Gyda doesn’t know this man. He is young, has a fierce look of bravery in his blue eyes and something calming, almost soothing about his presence - a sense of familiarity that she cannot explain. Gyda feels a strange pull towards him as if their paths are meant to cross - yet she is fairly certain she has never met him - she would have remembered at least his vibrantly blue eyes. For a moment their gazes met - there is no challange, no hostility, only a patient wait. Before Gyda is able to summon enough courage to ask the stranger for his name however, she feels a tug and suddenly her vision goes black and mute.

Gyda needs a few moments to come around to her senses and to realise that there are a few people kneeling next to her and frantically trying to wake her up. Their voices ring hollow with panic and their eyes are wide with terror. One of them who turns out to be Siggy pulls her back up to a sitting position and puts a cup with a warm broth to her lips. Gyda drinks greedily. Her parents are hovering nearby. Mother with a resigned worry painted all over her kind and beautiful face. Father suddenly stricken with terror of observing the fragile state of Gyda’s health for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side-note: I'm hinting at my favourite son of Ragnar with that last bit of the vision.  
(Also, I had to consult his eye colour with a few scene stills because I could have sworn his eyes were slightly green in a few of the episodes).


	9. Annunciation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone interested, this text now has a companion piece called Vita brevis (Warning: there is no dialogue in this one as well)!

After her vision in the Great Hall or rather a fainting spell as she told her parents as not to worry them and make them fearful of her current condition, Gyda isn’t allowed to roam freely anymore. Her mother asks Athelstan and Bjorn to keep her company and when both are busy with their own things, she instructs slave girls and servants to do the same. Gyda isn’t alone anymore which is both frustrating and very pleasing at the same time - she has company to talk to and play with. She gets to spend much more time with Bjorn than usual - her brother is slowly growing into a young man and the growing pains are accompanied with short patience and almost hyperactive demeanour that in other situations would prompt Bjorn to go his own way and search for his own entertainments. Thanks to her mother’s orders however Bjorn is forced to settle down with her - she is absolutely exhilarated at the prospect of weeks or maybe even month of this. Athelstan is also a very good companion - he knows so many interesting stories and he entertains her with drawing or writing, both of which captivate her attention and prompt many questions out of her mouth. Even the slave girls and the servants are worthy companions - they usually take her to the loom room where she can help with spinning wool and weaving or down to the kitchens where she always gets a few tasty morsels to eat. Gyda feels like a child again - she enjoys this constant companionship and care more than she would have ever imagined herself to do.

Her first vision burned away the remnants of darkness her illness brought with itself - it purified her like the fire purifies the soulafter one’s death. It left her at peace and somehow brought back some of her childish self - her world is still the same one that opened to her eyes after her malady but she doesn’t feel lost anymore. She is sure she will be able to navigate it from now on. The worries that plagued her and that made her heart heavy with sadness seem so far away and she enjoys the feeling of an almost complete weightlessness of her being - the only ones remaining are the family matters that were truly thrown out of the balance and seem to be as unstable as they have never been before. She isn’t blind and she can clearly see that the faced her mother has taken hides away her sadness and hurt at her father’s infidelity and betrayal. Lagertha tries to pretend to be unbothered by it but the glances she steals at Ragnar while the whole family gathers for their evening meal testify to something completely different. Her father is burdened with his own sorrows as he still hasn’t decided what he wants to do with his traitorous brother next. Her uncle Rollo is confined to his home and guarded at all times. This status quo cannot persist any longer however - the people are demanding their justice and soon they will enact it on their own if a public trial won’t be held.

The trial happens soon after as the whole of Kattegat gathers to witness it. The atmosphere is tense, the gathered crowd swells with anger as her uncle is brought to hear Ragnar’s sentence. To the dumbfounded surprise of all gathered the death sentence isn’t given and Rollo can walk away as a free man - Gyda watches her father’s stance and his face very intently to read his intentions but they are all masked by sadness and tiredness that threaten to leave Ragnar a broken man. Her uncle is as shocked as those who shouted at him a few moments ago but Siggy seems to be almost floating above the ground - her burden of sorrows suddenly absolved and forgotten. Gyda’ s also happy - she doesn’t know how she would be able to bear her uncle’s execution. Rollo retires to his house - this time without the guards at its door however.

The life in Kattegat seems to come back to normal - the days turn colder and shorter as the summer departs and leaves the town to colder winds that bring heavy rains with them. Gyda spends most of her days in the loom room - perfecting her craft and weaving her time away. That’s where the news of sudden and unexpected arrival reaches her - one of the servant girls tells her to hurry to the Great Hall and so Gyda arrives just in time to see the tall, heavily pregnant women in rich and decadent clothing enter its threshold. She doesn’t need to introduce herself as to everyone gathered - mother, father, Athelstan, Bjorn and herself - is absolutely clear with whom they are confronted. Aslaug. Aslaug who is pregnant with her father’s child. Gyda takes a good look at Aslaug - she sees a woman worried for her unborn child who seeks out protection and comfort but she also sees something else. She sees a woman marked by a strange spark in her eyes - a sign and sigil of gods. A gift of visions and foretelling the future. Gyda looks and sees a person who knows her fate and will dutifully fulfil it until her death. 

The supper that follows their very first encounter is particularly awkward - everyone is tense, Lagertha is fuming with badly masked rage and Bjorn relives what he has witnessed and what he has done all over again. Even Floki, who has finally regained enough strength to come and sup with them, seems to be weirdly silent. Gyda finishes her meal and retires to her room as quickly as possible - she doesn’t want to witness anything that is bound to happen in that hall that night as she fears it might really be the end of her family.


End file.
